


keep the things you forgot

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [18]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bonding, Established Relationship, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: Freddie and Iann took the Trappers to Martin Adjaye, and return with Freddie drained of blood and somewhat worse for wear. Ephram collects Freddie from Iann and takes care of him, as they talk about their childhoods and each other.Edith Crabtree (Ephram's maternal great-grandmother, Ellen Burstyn FC)Bahraman Ahmadi (Freddie's childhood nanny, Shohreh Aghdashloo FC)
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673





	keep the things you forgot

**Author's Note:**

> > Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)   
> 

Ephram drove to Mal Ojo with the siren on. He wanted Iann Cardero to hear him coming and have the drawbridge down, so to speak.

He screeched into the back loading bay, his usual stop for delivering potion moonshine, and before the truck was barely turned off he was out and hammering on the backdoor. “Cardero!” Ephram bellowed. “It’s Pettaline, let me in!”

Iann would be able to tell Ephram what had happened with Adjaye, what had been done to Freddie, the things that Ephram needed to know to better take care of his fairy in the aftermath. At least that was what Ephram hoped.

Iann himself peered out the back window at the noise. The Sheriff police car, seriously? Wasn’t there some sort of law for using official procedures for personal…

…oh who cared. This was Soapberry, where anything went.

He trotted down the stairs, opening the door and about to tell Pettaline to calm the hell down, because storming the castle wouldn’t change a damn thing. Goddamn Southerners and their goddamn drama. Fortunately for his jaw and/or eye, Iann said nothing and therefore did not risk getting punched in the face. He just looked at Ephram and then grimly said, “He’s up there. And his familiar.” Iann nodded his chin towards the stairs which would take Pettaline into his apartment.

Iann wouldn’t bother trying to help, because that was something of a joke in and of itself. Instead he left the backdoor pointedly open - this was no calling visit, just a grab & go - and peeled away to wait in his shambles of a closed storefront until they were gone.

“Wait.” Ephram grabbed Iann’s shoulder, hauling him back before the man had a chance to make his getaway. That in itself was puzzling; Cardero was a weird one, but he was normally more thorough than this. Always with a take-home sheet of Things To Do When You Leave so that the results of his work wouldn’t be botched and come to naught. “What happened? How’d you manage to get Adjaye off his tail? Did you–” A sick feeling lurched into Ephram’s throat, and his grip on Iann tightened. “Did you have to make some sort of deal to get out of it?”

This wouldn’t be the first time Iann had done such a thing, as Ephram well knew considering their past experiences with his demon Anaxis. “If that’s what you had to do then that’s fine, I just need to know. Tell me so I know how to handle this.”

Iann stared at Pettaline’s hand, then at the man himself.

“It’s a long story, and I promise I’ll gather all the kids together later for storytime - you and Elizabeth and Ruby, I’ll tell you all everything,” Iann said, unable to stop himself from sounding like a completely patronizing asshole. It was just Pettaline, so Iann didn’t care to hold back. “But - yeah - okay right,” Iann knew Ephram was right about certain things he needed to know. “Adjaye drained him completely, he’s healing but of course it’ll take time. Severe blood loss. So just give him lots of rest and maybe some Gatorade or something, Make sure he stays still and hydrated. Take him to the hospital if you need to, but his fairyness should do the trick.”

He gave a sulky shrug when Pettaline asked about the deal, but glared at the man. As if it was Ephram’s fault for Iann’s deal-making with Anaxis and every subsequent deal afterwards. “He’s pissed off, which is good. At least he’s got something to be angry about. Just don’t bring me up, okay? Don’t make him talk about me. Tell the others the same, too.”

Iann backed away again, his hand splayed. “Storytime for all, I promise.”

Ephram was used to Iann being patronizing so it rolled off his back without a second thought. His chief concern was that Iann still tell him what he needed to know, and Ephram gave a huff of relief when the eminently practical side of the man kicked in. Whatever it was that went south, it seemed to be localized entirely within the relationship that Iann had with Freddie and not in a more all-encompassing and irreparable way.

And Iann was right: pissed-off was good. After Freddie lingering so long in the shallow murk and mire of helplessness and despair, some anger would do wonders at clearing out the sticky remnants.

He let Iann go, creeping out like a thief into his store. Honestly, Ephram wouldn’t have put it past the man to have factored this, too, into his plan; being angry with Iann would give Freddie one helluva point of focus.

Bounding upstairs, Ephram heard Ollie barking in indignant, urgent greeting to guide him to where the fairy lay. Looking so pale he was blue-tinged at the tender rounded corners of his mouth and nose and eyes, a sad single empty juice box next to him on the floor. “Baby,” Ephram breathed, and with his next breath found himself swinging Freddie up into his arms, Ollie and all.

When Ollie stood up and began to bark frantically, Freddie fought to the surface of consciousness again; wondering for a split second if Iann had come too close and Oliver had attacked him, before he recognized his familiar’s emotional state for what it was, and his heart clenched in his chest.

Ephram.

The fairy opened his eyes just in time to see his husband burst through the door, and he smiled weakly, choking back a sob of happiness to see him, mumbling out a barely audible, “…hello, love…”

And then he and Ollie had been scooped up into Ephram’s arms; gathered in, and held fast - safe again, when even the idea of such a thing had seemed impossible only a few hours before. Freddie reached up to put an arm around his witch’s neck, though he barely had the strength to do it, holding as tight as he could, and murmured wetly, “…’s a bit worse than last time…”

“Hush yourself,” Ephram said, bearing Freddie and Ollie down the stairs, his heavied booted footsteps punching loudly against the wood. Keeping Cardero at bay, no doubt. “I never known you to downplay anything about yourself unless it’s real, real bad. ‘A bit worse’ my fuckin’ ass.”

Ollie leapt onto the cab seat the minute Ephram opened the truck door, monitoring anxiously as Ephram set Freddie down on the thick duvet he’d dragged out with him when he left the house. He tucked Freddie in tightly, muttering to himself the whole time, working in swift, hard motions. And then, once Freddie was situated, Ephram stopped with his big hands cupping his fairy’s shoulders. “You’re here,” he said, biting back a sob as his gaze tracked feverishly over Freddie’s features. “You made it, baby, you made it back to us. And I ain’t never, ever, gonna let you go off and face down death and demons alone again, you hear me?”

Ephram pushed against Freddie’s chest with his head, clutching his husband tight as he moaned, “…I would have died without you.” Despite being muffled, there was a stark sincerity in this claim, beyond Southern melodrama and into a stripped-down core of pure devastating belief.

The trip down the stairs and out the door to the truck passed mostly in a blur for Freddie, who couldn’t manage to process much more than his husband’s presence. That Ephram was there, and Ephram was taking him home, and finally finally everything was going to be alright. That for the first time in a very long time, nothing else - barring the wounds that were still bleeding; psychic and otherwise - would be allowed to hurt him.

Even as he was tucked into the passenger seat, and wrapped tightly in a duvet that smelled of the house in Jamara, and the best parts of having a home, Freddie’s head was still swimming. It wasn’t until Ephram took him by the shoulders, looking him over desperately, those blue eyes that Freddie adored brimming with love, and fear, and devotion, that everything was able to crystallize for the fairy; and he broke down himself, crying in relief, and in bottled-up terror, as he held Ephram to his chest, carding his fingers through his husband’s messy blond hair.

“I know, sweetheart…” he murmured raggedly, his breathing shallow and laboured, through his tears, “I know…”

Hearing Freddie’s voice and feeling his touch, the beat of his heart, punctured through Ephram’s encasement of shock and relief, letting him think again and breathe again. But he stayed there hanging on to his fairy for a while yet and feeling the sobs wrack Freddie’s body, only moving to the driver’s side when it seemed that Freddie’s weeping was tapering off. “Let’s get you home now, honey,” Ephram said, kicking the truck into gear and heading back to Jamara. He blasted the heat in the car, hoping the warmth would lull Freddie’s blood-cold body into some kind of sleep for the drive. Ollie, it looked like, was out for the count; the little Chin had tried valiantly to stay awake, but Ephram figured that the symbiosis the two shared had taken its toll on the familiar as well.

That was fine by Ephram. He sped them home and scooped them both back into his arms again, bearing them straight up to the master bedroom as Freddie slowly woke up. “We’re here already,” Ephram assured him, sitting on the bed and stroking Freddie’s hair, trying to see if there were any physical clues to what his husband had undergone. “You’re safe, you’re home.”

Taking a chance, Ephram slowly and carefully started to undress Freddie. His fairy wasn’t generally skittish about being divested of his clothing – he was the entire opposite of that modesty – but with no way of knowing what had been done to Freddie’s body during his ordeal, the last thing Ephram wanted to do was send his lover into a panic attack.

They were moving again when Freddie woke, cradled a second time in his husband’s arms before he was laid gently on their bed, and reassured that he was home - he was safe - before Ephram began to undress him. And Freddie just lay there and let him, his thoughts muzzy and muddled again, as he tried to get a firmer grip on consciousness.

On himself.

There was a moment, as Ephram carefully slid his shirt off, that the fairy became confused, and he shook his head, not wanting his lover to see the cigar burn festering on his back - before he realized that that ship had already sailed a week earlier, and this was, in fact, a different day. A different trauma.

“Forgive me, sweetheart,” he murmured, “It’s… I just- …never mind, yeah? It’s fine. There’s nothing to see…”

That wasn’t entirely accurate, of course - his neck and shirt were both smeared with blood, the rends in his skin still open where he’d been bitten, as his magic was focused on more pressing issues; and there was a large livid bruise on his stomach where he’d been punched - but in the grand scheme of things, the fairy had forgotten all those finer details.

“Just… lay down with me, yeah? I don’t… I don’t care about anything else…”

Ephram schooled his countenance into sympathy and love as he uncovered and catalogued more and more of Freddie’s injuries, keeping a stern rein on the fury that each new cruelty caused. Here was where Freddie’s trepidation was warranted, when it came to the indelible images of how he’d been raped and abused in the Trapper memory; Ephram couldn’t help but let this fresh brutality overlay that old one, anger mounting uncontrollably. That anybody would do this to Freddie, who gave of himself willingly, who tried to please more frequently than he ever scorned.

“Nothin’ to forgive, baby,” Ephram said, stripping down to his briefs and getting into bed with his husband. Half of him wished he’d collared Freddie, like he’d promised after the Trapper, so Adjaye would have seen it and known. The other half of him suspected that Freddie wouldn’t be here now in his arms if the vampire had found his kept boy wearing the claim of a witch on him.

With painstaking care, Ephram positioned them so that there was as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. His witch magic didn’t work on fae, and if it did then it wasn’t very well, but he and Freddie had always had a connection through their magic. Ephram couldn’t outright heal Freddie’s wounds, but maybe he could provide comfort, soothing. “Why would anybody hurt you like this,” Ephram blurted out haplessly, his hands curving with careful gentleness over Freddie’s body, over his wounds. “How could anybody.”

It was an accusation Ephram aimed at himself as well. He’d had blurry, confused dreams where he was that trick in the room with the pulsing red lights, he was the one visiting erotic sadism on Freddie’s body. He woke up from the dreamings, the fantasies, clammy-skinned and guilty – and rock-hard.

With a little agitated snuffle, Ephram buried his face against Freddie’s neck, starting to lave the dried and drying blood from around the bite wound.

Their difference in height allowed Ephram to wrap Freddie easily in the protective circle of his arms, his witch’s skin warm and comforting against his own bloodless chill; and Freddie, even in his exhaustion, snuggled back against Ephram’s chest as best he could. Though his heart ached for the trouble his past had caused when he felt the gentle ministrations of his husband’s tongue against his neck, cleaning away the now tacky blood that Martin had left behind.

“I think,” he finally said, his voice thin, though he knew Ephram hadn’t been looking for an answer, “-that he hurts me because he knows he can.”

“And I think other people hurt me because I make it easy for them.”

The fairy turned his head and made an effort to kiss Ephram’s fingers, sighing, “But I’ll be alright, love. I always am.”

Ollie trotted up onto the bed by way of his little staircase at the foot, and settled himself with an eye on the door, lest anyone he didn’t approve of attempt to come in, and Freddie was glad for his presence. “Martin’ll leave Soapberry now though,” he went on, his words getting breathier with the effort. “He’s got what he wanted, so he’s the world’s problem now…”

“I just want to forget that he exists.”

Ephram’s breath caught, hanging over Freddie’s weary, resigned reasons for his suffering. Continued, devastating suffering for the better part of his existence, that taught Freddie over and over that being hurt was his lot in life. “Oh, honey,” Ephram said, stilling his slow, gentle cleaning of the bite wound and just resting his mouth against Freddie’s cold skin. “There’s just … there’s some folks on this earth who see something beautiful and sweet and need to crush it. There’s nothin’ that you do that causes them to hurt you, don’t think that.”

Even Freddie’s wings felt brittle and cold, but that didn’t keep Ephram from touching them, needing to get all of Freddie warm. “You will be awright, though,” he agreed, stroking Freddie’s cheek. “You don’t gotta get there on your own, this time. You got me to help it along.”

Freddie never did too well with confronting the ugly ideas of himself that he’d internalized over the years, and right now with him struggling just to concentrate on talking, there was no way it would be fruitful. “Ollie told me,” Ephram began, winking at the little dog when he lifted his tufty head at the sound of his name, “that you had a method for helping yourself settle after something harrowing happened to you. Is that true? I couldn’t get the details outta him no matter how much fancy pâté I offered.”

This was a huge guess on Ephram’s part, but he figured his fairy would forgive him the fib whichever way it turned out.

If he’d had both the acuity, and the physical energy, in that moment to argue with Ephram’s assessment, Freddie would have. His troubles had to be his own fault - the sum of his inadequacies, his deficiencies - because if they weren’t, then there was no truth to the law of averages; no comfort to be found in the notion of karma.

And it hurt less to think that he was responsible for his own suffering than to accept that he just happened to have been born fortune’s fool.

But since he possessed neither of those things thanks to the loss of his blood, he didn’t. Instead, he just stayed quiet for a moment, before letting out a soft broken noise as his husband attempted to warm him; those large hands always so gentle when they needed to be.

“I know, love,” Freddie said when Ephram told him that at least this time he wasn’t alone, “And I’m grateful for that. You honestly have no idea how much.” He huffed out something that almost resembled a chuckle. “But I’m afraid you got a bit taken for ride over that pâté, darling - because I’ve never had much of a method at all for dealing with things. I just- I don’t know… get on with it, I suppose.”

“I mean, when I was little, I used to chew my thumbnail bloody, and hide, or break things… but once I got older I just… packed it away and went on with business as usual. I tried not to give it any time to soak in.” Freddie’s voice took on a hollow, remote sort of a quality, laboured though it was. “And that works. For the most part…”

He sighed. “Or not. I don’t know. I like to think it does, any road.” He went quiet again, still lightheaded and having trouble keeping his thoughts and his words ordered properly. “A bath might be nice though… It helped a bit last time. And I’m so bloody cold, sweetheart…”

Freddie shifted to try to look back over his shoulder at Ephram. “Would you help me? Get in with me and that? It’ll be a tight fit, but… I’d rather have you close if I could.”

Had Freddie been able to gather his thoughts, Ephram would have shame-facedly agreed with him. It was a coping mechanism that the witch used too; ascribing the blame to yourself gave a reason for the mindless, debilitating evil that had been done to you. The thought that it was all due to chaos and chance was one that threatened to shut you down for good.

But it wasn’t stated, and so Ephram in his well-meaning obliviousness to Freddie’s theory being one he subscribed to had only his clumsy assurances to offer. And his hopeful gamble at Freddie’s survival methods, which turned out to be less than realistic; his husband was more the type to shove it down and digest trauma, it seemed. “I’ll make it up to you,” he murmured at the slandered little Chin, who seemed somewhat mollified by Ephram’s show of contrition.

“Of course we can have a bath,” Ephram agreed, kissing Freddie’s cheek. “That’s a right good idea, dumplin’, and that monster tub in there could hold us both easy. My angel fairy boy. Hold tight.” He kissed the back of Freddie’s neck and withdrew, making sure Freddie was tucked in tight while Ephram went to the bathroom. This being a mansion in Jamara, the bathtub was enchanted to fill in a matter of seconds, just like the faucets were enchanted to pour hot water right out the tap. He ran the water somewhat cooler than he’d normally do – Freddie didn’t have much experience with feeling sick, and likely didn’t know that hot water would feel good at first but then make him dizzy and nauseated. They could always make it hotter or just rely on Ephram’s considerable body heat.

Coming back to the room, he unwrapped and collected his punch-drunk husband, bearing him to the tub and settling himself inside first. Freddie came next, safe in the valley between Ephram’s long legs and held against his witch with one strong arm. Ephram had tipped a little bit of some fancy-smelling bath oil into the water, and started to use a big sea sponge to idly wash Freddie’s chest. “When I stayed with Edith,” he said, remembering that Freddie had liked the stories about his great-grandmaw, “she would wash me in a tin tub out in the yard. It was cold and she scrubbed me hard, but I liked it. You felt scrubbed clean of all your worries and sins by the time she bundled you out in a big ol’ towel and gave you a peanut patty to eat while she combed your hair, checked for lice, cleaned your ears, made you blow your nose, and then coated you head to toe with Vaseline.”

Settled comfortably back against Ephram’s chest, lulled and soothed by the warm solid presence of his husband, and the heat of the water, Freddie let his eyes drift closed - but he didn’t sleep. He just wanted to focus on the gentle motion of the sponge on his chest, the smell of the oil, and the burnt-sugar rumble of Ephram’s voice.

Wanting, despite his battered body, and his ragged emotional state - his lingering fear, and his agonized rage; the horror of how close he’d come to both varieties of death - to take back his life again. To steep himself in this man, this place - this kind of love.

And as such, Freddie smiled to hear Ephram’s grandmother’s name; Edith being one of his favourites. Through his haze he could picture his witch as a little boy, sat out in the yard in a tin tub, with Edith’s frizzle chickens holding court, squirming as the old lady scrubbed him down. Her, doting on him, even as she rubbed him raw, because he’d always been the child she loved best.

Freddie liked to think of Ephram that way more than he could express. Innocent, and happy, and well-loved; untroubled by the darkness that would come later…

The fairy wrinkled his nose at the mention of lice though; laughing weakly, but genuinely, when Ephram came to the Vaseline. “Vaseline?” he repeated, “Why in the world would she do that, love?”

“Honestly, sometimes I think you make up some of these Southern traditions just because you know I’ll believe you.”

“Bahraman used to have a time of it with me though…” he went on, his usual reticence about his own childhood pulled thin and transparent in his muzzy state, “I hated water in my eyes, and couldn’t sit still to save myself…”

Freddie was pretty much spot-on with his visions of Ephram’s childhood; those had been wonderful years, up until about age 12 when his mother’s drinking really started escalating. And a lot of that wonderfulness was because of Edith. There were things the old lady could teach her great-grandbaby that Lulie couldn’t, the girl only being sixteen herself when she’d had Ephram. Lulie was good-hearted and pretty and doted on Ephram, but she was soft, easily bruised, childlike as a Dickens girl innocent. Edith saw something of herself in Ephram, a spirit that would keep on ticking no matter what hardships it endured, and she did her best to prepare the boy to face it. He was a Pettaline, after all, and Edith knew that entire mess of a clan would no doubt pass its trouble down to Ephram.

Laughing at Freddie’s confusion regarding the Vaseline, Ephram played along for a while, saying with great seriousness, “Oh, back in Apple Fall everybody greased their kids down after a bath. See, we got into the habit when ol’ Sawmill Skaggs was training to win a greased pig contest at the county fair, and he oiled up his own young’uns so’s he could practice catching em. It kinda became the fashion and we done it ever since.”

Ephram pressed a kiss to the side of Freddie’s head, chortling as he swished warm water over them both. “It was just to keep our skin from drying out. The air’s drier and colder up in them mountains and a good coating of jelly kept us from getting cracked skin and prevented ticks from getting a good hold.” He snuffled against Freddie’s ear, amused. “Romantic living, up in holler country.”

The laxness of Freddie’s normal hesitance to talk about Bahraman didn’t escape Ephram’s notice, though, and he said, “Don’t baby fairies love water? With being able to splash your tiny wings in it and all?” The mental image of that made Ephram’s heart contract painfully; his sweet Freddie, little and rounded and made of such gentle stuff that he got fussy in a bath. “I’m guessing Bahraman couldn’t loofah you down if you was so against baths. Did you like pools? Or was it only water that involved soap you protested?” Ephram dragged the sponge up Freddie’s middle, teasing, “You seem to have grown outta that one.”

For half a second, Freddie was genuinely taken aback by the idea that, at some point in the late nineteen-eighties, greasing children had actually become a trend in Apple Fall, Kentucky - before laughing softly at his own gullibility. “You’re awful,” he murmured, with as much indignation as he could muster, when Ephram kissed his temple and told him the truth, “How am I supposed to know any better, eh? In light of that horrible pimento cheese, anything seems possible…”

The fairy shifted slightly to better look up at his husband. “Are there really ticks though? Because that strikes me as something I should remember for when we visit…”

The sweet fragrant warmth of the water and the comfort of Ephram’s body both finally beginning to chase away some of the horror of the night, Freddie made a soft noise of encouragement as his witch bathed him; glad for the strong arm he was cradled in, and almost entirely oblivious as to how much of his past he was quietly dragging out into the light for inspection.

“Oh, splashing was lovely,” he agreed, fatigue sanding his voice, “I quite liked splashing - that was a large part of my inability to behave myself - I just didn’t ever want to get my face wet. Or, not properly wet, any road,” he chuckled. “Which made washing my hair a bit awkward.”

“Though obviously,” he went on, a smile tired smile tugging at his lips as Ephram’s sponge moved slowly up his chest, “-I’ve become a much better boy since then.”

“But the bath was about the extent of my time in the water when I was little, really. I could never go swimming, because I couldn’t be trusted to remember to keep my wings glamoured away. It wasn’t until I was older, and had better control, that I learned.”

“Fairy babies, unfortunately,” Freddie sighed, “-are just a bit of a handful, no matter what you do with them. Which is precisely why fairy parents are so ill-equipped to have them.”

“Like pimento cheese,” Ephram intoned ominously, “ticks are a part of rural Southern life, my fancy fairy. You can’t escape neither one of em.” He wrapped his arms around Freddie, hugging him close as the sponge dripped water down Freddie’s arm. “I’m sure there’s gonna be things in Prague when you take me there that I won’t like, right? Prague cheese and ticks.” He frowned for a moment. “What country’s Prague in again? Geography was never anything I had any learning in.”

Despite the weary erosion in Freddie’s tone, there was a relaxed, dozy aspect to his usual bed-tumbled voice that Ephram was glad to hear. “You’re the best boy,” Ephram murmured, kissing Freddie’s head, smoothing down his hair and kissing again against the seal-brown softness. “I would love to have a fairy baby. I think they sound sweet as sugar pie. And I should know, having one of my own already.” He snuggled against Freddie some more, continuing, “Bahraman had her own magic with you though, didn’t she? Like taking you to the Guy Fawkes bonfires and stuffing you full of treats.”

Ephram toed the hot water on for a few moments to heat up the bath again, looping his ankles over Freddie’s shins when he settled back down. “I mean, I always figured that she had something to do with how you are as a grown man. Her being your primary minder when you was a scrapling and all.” It was a rare opportunity, having Freddie so talkative about his youth, his babyhood, and Ephram wanted to keep unraveling gently, coaxing stories and insights from his husband for as long and (relatively) painlessly as he could.

There was no end, after all, to the depths of his wanting to know about Freddie. His past, his present, his feelings and thoughts, his pettiness and his generosity. Absolutely, utterly everything that had come together to forge the love of his life.

Freddie laughed softly at the notion of Prague cheese and ticks, turning for a moment, as best he could, in Ephram’s arms and pressing a kiss to his husband’s damp chest. “It’s in the Czech Republic, love,” he said, “-and I can’t wait to show it to you.”

“But you’re right, though - everywhere has got its downsides. I mean, Prague hasn’t got ticks - that I know of, any road - but it has got tourists now. Great bloody hoards of them - and really, they’re worse. But you’ll have to see it for yourself, and then tell me what you think, yeah?” He laughed again. “And you’ll have to forgive me when I make you check me over every night before bed in Apple Fall.”

Freddie made a soft noise of contentment as Ephram cuddled and pet him, murmuring the kind of sweet praise that the fairy was always so hungry to hear - especially in his more bruised and vulnerable moments - along with his kisses; and Freddie wrapped himself in it, nodding lightly when Ephram mentioned Bahraman. “She did, yeah,” he said, “God… I loved her so much when I was little…”

“Do you know,” he mused, “I never remember her taking any time off? Eight years, and she just… took me everywhere. I never wanted to be away from her…”

A smile tugged at the corner of Freddie’s mouth. “After I’d started school too - day school and that - she was always the only one anybody ever dealt with. The one who turned up to Parents’ Evening, the one who came in to speak to my teachers when I got into trouble… I was such a little show-off… But she always encouraged me. Not to misbehave - she wouldn’t tolerate that sort of nonsense; so I saved it up for when I was out of arm’s reach - but she was proud of me.”

He smiled softly, and a little sadly. “She told me I was the cleverest boy in the world…”

“And I believed her, because I believed everything she ever said.” The fairy was quiet for a moment, drifting on the ebb and flow of his own recollections. “Until I didn’t anymore.”

The extra infusion of hot water relaxing him further, Freddie settled his hands on Ephram’s thighs, supported as he was in the delta of his husband’s legs, and gently dragged his fingertips back and forth under the water, huffing out a bit of a chuckle. “Little did she know, of course, that she was creating a monster.”

“You’re such a goddamn snob,” Ephram laughed, wrapping his arms tightly around Freddie and jostling him as the sponge dripped water down Freddie’s side, delivering a scolding tiny nip to his fairy’s faintly pointed ear. “Too many tourists! I betcha the Pragueians feel different bout it, when them tourists buy up all their, uh …” Ephram hummed thoughtfully against the soft skin behind Freddie’s ear. “Their whatever the Czech folks have for souvenirs. Ballerinas? Sweet rolls? Snow globes with teensy lil figures of you that you posed for when you lived there? I’d buy all of them things.”

Snuggling Freddie closer against him, Ephram placed the sponge on Freddie’s hipbone so he had both hands free to hold his husband. “I promise I’ll search every inch of you for ticks, every night,” he said, continuing with a warmth in his voice, “…since I’m gonna be stripping you bare every night anyhow.”

He listened to Freddie’s stories about Bahraman with quiet pleasure, feeling much the same as Freddie did when Ephram talked about Edith. “Eight years,” he murmured. “That’s a good stretch of time. And you her clever lil sweetpea.” Ephram kissed Freddie’s head. “Sometimes I wish I could time travel back to then and fuss over you when you was a young’un, all show-off sunshine. I can imagine how Bahraman felt about you then, considering what you’re like now.”

Ephram had long suspected that the senior Mr. Watts had something to do with the woman’s disappearance from Freddie’s life, and he hated the man for ripping such a vacuum in his only child’s heart. Freddie’s expansive charm and magnetic nature made him irresistible; but once you got closer there was a tender sadness there, buried deep in a soul more gentle than the dazzle and shine let on. The loss of his mother was the beginning of it, but Ephram was sure that Freddie would have been more resilient about that abandonment had Bahraman stayed in his life. Instead of having his only source of love, affection, and measured discipline disappeared without a word.

Ephram ran one hand up Freddie’s broad chest, rubbing at his elegant collarbone and feeling the shift of his wings between them. “It’s fine that you believed her,” he said, thoughtful. “When you’re a kid you need to believe in things, even if it changes on you. And after all she was right, Freddie, honey.” Ephram scooped some of the scented water and smoothed it along Freddie’s chest and throat. “You’re an incredible person. You make everybody who spends time with you feel like they’re interesting and desirable, you know you’re more clever than a den of foxes, and, y’know, also you really are kind of a monster.”

Ephram touched a wet finger to the tip of Freddie’s nose, burying his face in the back of his fairy’s neck as he huffed with amusement.

Freddie scrunched his nose and laughed gently as Ephram squeezed him, calling him a snob and nipping at his ear; his husband’s unparalleled ability to make him feel warm, and safe, and loved, doing it’s level best to beat back everything else. “A snob?” he protested, “I am not a-”, and then he shook his head with a sleepy approximation of a grin. “Oh, who am I kidding?” he said, “Of course I am. I’m snooty and awful.”

He tilted his head back to look up into Ephram’s eyes, still smiling. “So when we go to Prague, if you want souvenirs I’ll buy you all the crystal, and beer, and glass, and garnets, and wooden what-have-you that you like - I’ll even pose for a snow-globe - but if you come home with a shirt that says ‘Czech Me Out’ or ‘Prague Drinking Team’, I’ll never ever forgive you, Ephram Pettaline; no matter how gorgeous and wonderful you are. I’ll hold it against you forever.”

But the fairy made a low soft noise of approval as Ephram cuddled him closer, promising all the right sorts of indulgence and attention when they made their way to Kentucky - and Freddie found himself longing for it; wanting to shake off the tainted clinging vestiges of his past by immersing himself wholly in his present and future.

Wanting to meet Lulie, and Cheyenne, and Alesha - and to know them; to be a part of all the aspects of Ephram’s life.

“Can we go soon, do you think?” he asked, watching as a rivulet of pinkish-red water ran down his chest, the last of the blood Martin had left smeared across his neck washing away to dilute to nothing in their warm fragrant bathwater. “Because I’d like to.”

“Really, love. I can’t honestly think of anything else I’d rather do.”

Ephram kissed Freddie’s head, and the fairy smiled at the gentle bit of affection, so easily given, and so much what he’d wanted for so long. “Well, six years really, I suppose,” he said, correcting himself in regards to his childhood, “My mother Laetitia hired her she just before she left, and I was two by then - but since Bahraman’s all I ever really knew, I tend to just round up.”

He huffed out a bit of a chuckle. “And I’d like to say that I’d have driven you mad when I was little because I never stopped talking and clamouring for attention - but that’s not really so different from the way I am now, is it?”

“And you seem to be bearing up alright so far.”

Shifting slightly, Freddie closed his eyes again as Ephram’s hands moved gently but surely over his torso and up to his collarbones and throat - the touch still managing to harden his nipples in spite of all that his body had been through and was currently trying to repair - and he hummed lightly at his husband’s sweetly complimentary assessment, loving him desperately for believing it.

But at the touch of his nose, and the wonderful ticklish feeling of Ephram’s beaded face nuzzling into his neck, he laughed again, wrapping his arms around his witch’s where they wrapped around his middle. “But now I’m your monster, Sheriff,” Freddie said, “For better or worse.”

“’Czech Me Out’,” Ephram repeated, his eyes and voice brightening at the idea. “Oh my God, Freddie. That’s so awesome! Why wouldn’t you want me wearing that? It’d wear it everywhere I went! Czech me out.” He shook his head, impressed with the joke and pleased as punch with Freddie calling him such nice things. “You kin hold it ag’inst me,” Ephram agreed, lapsing into the deepest and most impenetrable incarnation of his Appalachian accent. “I’ll be caught up holdin' you ag’inst me, hooo-ee yessuh.”

Grinning, Ephram arranged them a little more curved in the tub, drawing Freddie’s head against the crook of his shoulder so that they could look at each other a little as they talked. “You best get used to hearin’ folk speak like this,” he informed Freddie, “on account of everbody in the holler soundin’ the same. Is there some fairy glamour you could use to help?” Ephram gave Freddie a big smacking kiss on the point of his cheekbone. “Because darlin’, I know you got a half-dozen languages under your belt, but Appalachian likely ain’t one of em.”

The idea of taking his partners to Kentucky, to Apple Fall, was both appealing and terrifying for Ephram. He wanted to show them off to his family, wanted that like crazy, but … Ruby was from well-off Charleston and Freddie was a man with champagne tastes. They would never look down on Ephram, it wasn’t anything like that, it was Ephram’s own reluctance to be seen. For them to view the reality of the impoverished childhood he’d had, the derelict, racist, uneducated, meth-and-Mountain Dew people who he called kinfolk and loved, for the most part.

But on the other hand – if he couldn’t show his beloved partners the unvarnished truth of where he came from, what kind of man would he be?”

Squeezing Freddie, Ephram gently went back to his fairy’s shared recollections. “Your mum’s the one who hired Bahraman?” he repeated, intrigued. Had the woman chosen somebody she knew would be good for the fairy baby she was leaving, who would be a better mother, in Laetitia’s opinion? Was that her way of providing for her child, when she realized she couldn’t raise him? Ephram liked to think so. “I reckon that’s why your dad was so easy with firing her, then.”

Continuing to smooth scented water all over Freddie’s torso, lingering at the curve of his navel, the insides of his elbows, the hollow of his throat, Ephram chuckled. “My lil monster deserves all the attention,” he declared. “And sasquatch – that’s me – likes his chattering and clamouring. Could stand to hear it and attend to his sweetheart’s needs till the end of time.”

Freddie wrinkled his nose at Ephram’s enthusiasm for the pun, huffing out a grudging laugh and murmuring, “Ugh, the worst part about that is that on you it would almost be charming,” before smiling at his husband’s thickened accent, and the exaggerated kiss pressed to his cheek.

“And no, love,” he went on, laughing softly as he answered Ephram’s question, “I’m afraid glamours don’t work that way - whenever I end up somewhere new I just have to muddle along until I get the language sorted the same as everyone else. The best fairy dust can give me is the ability to mimic the accent.” He raised his hand to his throat to demonstrate before realizing that such a thing was currently impossible. “Or it would do,” he sighed, “-if I could actually produce any at the moment. I’m afraid I’m not going to be much use for a few days…”

But Freddie pushed all that ennui down as hard, and as far, as he could, allowing himself to drift back to more pleasant distractions - Ephram, and Kentucky, and the notion that he once again had a future to dream on.

To literally dream on, before long - if the weight of his fatigue had anything to say about it.

“Apparently, yeah,” Freddie nodded, following Ephram back to the topic of his childhood as his eyes got heavier; thinking of his mothers, both real and imagined. “Bahraman never really said much about it; only that they’d met… somewhere - I used to know where, I think, and how… but I’ve forgotten now - and Mum offered her the job.”

“But I’m sure you’re right, love, and that was part of why Reginald was so eager to get shot of her. Though he likely would have preferred it if she could have taken me with her…”

“Christ knows I would’ve.”

The fairy smiled again though, sleepy-eyed and safe in the circle of Ephram’s arms, as his witch’s hands continued to move gently over his body. Each caress sweet and intimate, as Ephram called himself a sasquatch and promised Freddie his attention stretching on into eternity.

“You have no idea how grateful I am for that,” Freddie said softly, catching Ephram’s large hand and bringing it up to his mouth to kiss it. “…but I want to see to your needs too…”

He kissed Ephram’s fingertips again, as sleep continued to bully him, and murmured, “I want us to take care of each other…”


End file.
